Читать книгу Wild Enough For Willa - Ann Major - Страница 11

The temperature was still ninety degrees when Luke’s Porsche leapt the last cedar-clad hill. Wheels spinning, the Porsche took the drive on two wheels, skidding to a halt. As the garage door lifted, he saw the empty space on the right side of the garage.

Marcie.

She was never coming back.

He parked on her side and got out. She was everywhere, almost a living presence tonight. If their sprawling one-story showplace with its tall chimneys, numerous balconies, and the impressive copper roof had been built with his money, it reflected Marcie’s taste and exquisite beauty. Adjoining the house were guest cottages. Beneath the mansion were the maid, Lucinda’s quarters. Marcie, who had loved to entertain, had thought of every comfort, caring even about Lucinda’s.

Marcie had loved stunning views and had chosen this lot to build their modern dream palace a thousand feet above shimmering Lake Travis. Windows that lacked lake views looked out upon lush gardens with fountains, reflecting pools and bird feeders.

These barren limestone hills covered with cedar and live oak on the outskirts of Austin with their vistas of the jewel-blue lake were fast becoming Texas’s answer to the Mediterranean. Or at least they had been Luke McKade’s answer—until Marcie had walked, taking her furniture and that hideous cat of hers, Mr. Tom. Without her and that spoiled beast she’d been so devoted to, the place felt as cold as a tomb.

Not that there weren’t any number of computer jackals with money to burn who’d made offers on the house the minute Marcie split. Lake Travis was the place to live among his set. Every day more trees were cleared, more castle sites started, each castle having to be bigger and more impressive than the one before.

He wasn’t about to sell. The house was image. He’d live here, in desolate splendor even if it reminded him of her—if it killed him. He’d buy a second car or maybe a new boat first thing Monday, so he could quit staring at that empty spot in his garage.

When Luke pushed open the immense brass-studded, teak front doors, he heard his phone. He raced for it. Brandon Baines was on his Caller ID.

Baines was persistent as hell. He took what he wanted or kept pushing until he got it. He wouldn’t let go of anything or anyone he considered his. He was especially ruthless with women. When they’d been in school he’d gotten a law student, a friend of Luke’s, pregnant. Even after her powerful daddy had made a stink, Baines had considered the girl his property to do with as he pleased.

When Baines had offered her money for an abortion, she’d refused. Her father had thrown her out then. In the end, Luke had let her move in with him for a couple of months until she could get on her feet, a fact that had infuriated the possessive Baines, who’d wanted to run things. When the baby was born, Baines had come to the hospital and tried to force the woman to give up her little girl and come back to him.

When she’d taken her daughter and vanished, Baines had blamed Luke. “Because of you, I’ve got a little bastard out there. The bitch could turn up with her brat at an awkward time.…”

“Because of me, your kid’s alive.”

“You would be partial to bastards—”

Luke’s fist had slammed into that golden jawline before he could finish his sentence. They hadn’t spoken for a year. After that run-in they’d graduated, gotten jobs and been on opposite sides of a case.

The phone started up once more.

Again, Luke avoided it. He went to the window and watched a boat speeding across that brilliant expanse of blue. He picked up his binoculars. A man held a woman with golden hair in his arms as they raced across the lake.

Marcie and he had gone boating most evenings. He hadn’t used the boat once since. Luke watched the white speedboat until it vanished behind an island. When it didn’t reappear on the far side of the island, he knew they’d thrown an anchor out, probably gone below to enjoy each other.

High on his hill, Luke felt alone, cut off from every living being on earth. Suddenly, he felt restless in the big, empty house. He needed to talk to somebody. The phone rang again. Luke went to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and then the receiver.

“Where the hell have you been?” Baines demanded.

“Funeral.” Luke took a long pull from the bottle.

Baines’s quick, inappropriate laugh was a little hollow. “This is good—yours or mine?”

“My wife’s.”

“Sorry. Hey—I heard she left you.”

“We’d decided to get back together.” Not that Baines cared.

“Your brother’s here.”

Alert suddenly, Luke felt his hair spike on the back of his neck. Carefully he kept his voice casual. “Give him my regards.”

“He’s got a gun.”

“So does every other macho Texan.”

“You know what I mean. He threatened—”

“If you’re scared, call the cops. He’s violated parole. They’ll send him back to prison.”

“He’s sick. Cancer.”

Luke sucked in a breath. He was glad Baines couldn’t see him, couldn’t detect…Luke felt cold, so cold. And it was a hot night.

Baines was still talking. “But do you think the crazy little bastard went home to his old man or checked himself into a hospital?”

Old man…

“Didn’t he?”

“Hell, no. Says he’s dying. The cocky little shit says he’s gonna kill himself a lawyer first. You know who…yours truly.” Baines paused. “He’s after Spook, too. And then…after he does us, guess who’s next, old buddy—”

Luke stood unmoving, his hand frozen on his icy bottle. Cancer? Little Red…?

“You really want me to call the cops? That’ll mean publicity. I thought you said you didn’t want anybody to know you had a piece of scum like him for a brother.”

Scum? Once Baines and his rich white law school buddies had called Luke scum.

Cancer? The kid was barely twenty-three. Five years in prison…and now a diagnosis like that. Would he die young like Marcie?

A quietness stole over Luke. His computerlike mind raced. What the hell kind of cancer? Could something be done? Options? Doctors? Experimental treatments? M.D. Anderson Cancer Center?

He thought of the stacks of sealed manila envelopes in that locked safe in his bedroom closet. Reports in those envelopes told all about the kid whose existence Luke publicly denied, whom Luke had denied to himself—until the day the old man had barged into his office and said, “I need a lawyer.”

“I would have thought a man with your connections would have any number of lawyers of his own.”

“I need a dope dealer’s lawyer. I hear you’re friends with that piece of slime in the valley—Brandon Baines.”

“Friends? Call Baines yourself. I’m busy. Kate, show this…er…this gentleman out.”

“You can’t throw me out like I’m nobody.”

“What exactly are we to each other? Are you my father?”

Big Red had glared at him. Then he’d looked away. Finally the old man had broken the silence.

“Baines says he’s too busy to see me.”

“That’s too bad.”

Luke knew, as he’d known that day, a whole lot more about the kid than he had ever let on. Oh, yes he knew a lot. He’d been keeping tabs for years. Even then he’d had a secret filing cabinet bulging with information about the kid.

Not that Luke had personally set foot in New Mexico to get that information. He hated that state, the people and the culture—what they’d done to him; what they’d done to his mother. Most of all what the old man had done to her.

Still, Luke knew the exact day, the exact minute, the exact place Little Red had been born. He had every school picture stapled to a single sheet of typing paper. He knew every basketball game the kid had ever won, knew every grade he’d ever made, knew the kid could add like a computer the same as he could. The kid was lousy in English the same as he was, too. Knew the kid had had a complex in high school because he’d been skinny and unattractive to girls.

Luke even knew the name of the first girl Little Red had screwed in college, knew they’d gotten high on pot and done it in the back seat of the brand-new, red Chevy the old man had given Little Red so he could make a splash in college.

Luke hadn’t had a car in college or law school. He’d had jobs. He hadn’t gotten to screw girls. At least not as often as he’d wanted. He’d had to work too damn hard.

Every time Luke had read a report he had visualized the boy and his charmed life, trying to get into his head the experiences he’d only dreamed about. He had wanted to know what it was like to be beloved and legitimate—to be the pure-white son.

Luke knew the brand of the first cigarette the kid had smoked. Just as he knew when the kid had taken the first false step, made the first bad friend that had led toward his dealing dope for Spook. Luke could have called the old man, could have warned him long before the kid went bad. Big Red had cut the free-spending kid off when he’d flunked out. The kid had been desperate. Instead of getting a real job, he’d started selling dope to friends.

He’d been a natural salesman. Girls had been easy to get after that. His life and travels had made fascinating reading. And the ritzy Longworths had been fooled by the lies the kid told them, believing he was a whiz in the computer business and had a real job.

Will Sanders, a private detective in Albuquerque, still made his monthly visits to Austin to update Luke’s files. Sanders had even had contacts in prison, so Luke knew everything that had happened to Little Red during the past five years, too. He knew about that night seven guys had held the kid down in his cell and nearly killed him.

Luke had taken steps then, used connections to get the kid moved. Gradually, Luke had begun to feel pride about how stoically Little Red had endured prison. A lot of pampered rich kids couldn’t have stood up to the abuse Little Red had suffered.

The kid was out. Free.

But cancer?

The kid needed doctors—fast.

“McKade, have you heard a damn thing I’ve said? He’s got a gun,” Baines repeated.

“And he knows how to use it. Stay out of his sight. I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Look, I’ve got another big problem that can’t wait. A woman…”

“Hold tight.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Give the kid a target he can’t resist—me.”

“This is good.”

Luke slammed the phone down, his gut churning. He waited a minute, grabbed his cell phone to call his pilot.

No! He’d drive.

He didn’t bother to pack. He was out the door, running.

The smell of raw sewage hung in the air, no doubt, vapors from the Rio Grande. Heat glued Luke’s white collar to his neck. His long-sleeved, cotton shirt felt heavy and wet against his armpits. He wore jeans, boots, and a black Stetson. Three blocks shy of the posh, tourist zone of Nuevo Laredo with fancy restaurants like his favorite, El Rancho, and glitzy silver and leather shops, Luke stomped through paper cups, papaya peels, plastic bags, broken bottles, not to mention the human debris—beggars and pimps.

Familiar territory to a man with his past.

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico was an old city with a crumbling infrastructure. Like all poor places it was noisy, hot and dirty. It was in-your-face, gutsy, colorful and alive.

A shiny, low-riding American sedan cruised up to Luke, its radio blaring. A skinny, Mexican punk with a silver crucifix dangling from his glistening brown neck got out. The boy rushed him from the darkness, flipping pictures of naked girls.

Gleaming white smiles in pretty brown faces. Iridescent straight black hair. Breasts. Thighs.

Girls who didn’t look a day over fifteen. Girls willing to do whatever perversion a man could pay for. There were illustrations of those perversions.

Unsure of Luke’s nationality, the boy switched back and forth from English to Spanish.

“Meester…pretty girls.…Putas.…Muy baratas.… Cheap! They do anything.”

Luke shook his head, waving him off, only to have a dozen more swarm him.

“¡Vayate!” Luke growled, knowing but not caring that he probably botched the grammar.

“Chinga…”

The boys made vile hand gestures, such gestures having a rich obscene vocabulary all their own in Mexico. Aloud, they cursed him with a virulent stream of Mexican profanity. Then on the next breath, they sauntered jauntily across the street to cajole a fat-stomached tourist in Bermuda shorts who was smoking a cigar. Rap music pulsed from the low-slung sedan as the gringo leered at their pictures and then pulled out a fat wallet.

“Putas. Very pretty.”

Fun and games? In Mexico? Tonight?

They do anything.

It had been a while since Luke had had a woman. Sucker that he was, he’d been true to Marcie. It struck him he’d been waiting for her call and not her lawyers. His pride, his stupid pride had killed her.

I’m sorry. Why had that been so hard to say?

Sweat dripped from Luke’s brow. The heat. The damned desert heat. In July, even at night, Nuevo Laredo was like a furnace, baking him from above and below.

Why the hell hadn’t Baines done what Luke had told him? Why couldn’t he have stayed put in the good old U.S. of A.? But, no. Baines, like a lot of lawyers, had a penchant for drama. He was up ahead, leading this caravan of fools through the dense NAFTA traffic.

Little Red was not far behind.

Baines had gotten a green light when he’d crossed the border. His companions were a gorilla in a jogging suit, a small, skinny guy with greasy, black hair and a goatee, and a yellow-haired whore in red polka dots who was so pretty she made Luke’s stomach knot.

The Americans had stopped Little Red. But the paunchy-gutted idiots in their tight uniforms had let him go. When Luke got across the traffic-clogged border, which was bumper to bumper with eighteen-wheelers, he found Baines’s and Little Red’s cars two blocks from the main drag, their doors open in a dirt lot as if the occupants had scrambled out of them and taken off running. The radios had been ripped out. In another hour, the tires would be gone, too.

Beside Baines’s car, Luke had found his brother’s wallet, all the money gone and a high-heeled, red pump. Was the shoe the whore’s?

So where were they? He’d asked questions. Paid people. So far, he’d come up with zip.

Suddenly something that looked like bright red hair shimmered under blue neon a few blocks ahead. When Luke sprinted, a beggar with a mouthful of black teeth grabbed his ankle. Stumbling, he threw a fistful of pesos at the woman. Pushing himself free of her, he raced toward blue neon.

The redhead had vanished. Luke ran until he was thoroughly out of breath and thoroughly lost. When he stopped, he was on some dusty, rutted lane that wound in an indefinite course through a warren of shabby, graffiti-splashed buildings. Breathing hard, Luke rocked back on his heels.

Buildings? The houses were crude shacks made of sticks, adobe and cinder block. They leaned against one another like a row of dominoes ready to fall.

Hell on earth had to be junked cars lining a road like this. Hell was dirty, mean-looking, starving cats and dogs, half-naked kids with big brown eyes and ragged clothes. For an instant Luke was back at the pueblo. Then he stopped himself, not letting himself go there.

A lone rooster wandered in circles in the middle of the road. What was the use? Little Red could be anywhere. Luke might as well find a bar, have a tequila, the good kind, and pray for a break. But as he was scanning the houses for a familiar landmark so he could retrace his steps, a woman screamed.

Harsh slaps quieted her.

Then a gun popped, and she screamed again.

“Get off her, so I can kill myself a lawyer!”

Luke knew that voice.

The kid!

Another low-throated cry. This time Luke placed it as coming from the cinder block shack two houses down.

The silence that followed unnerved him. A brown bottle in the gutter caught Luke’s eye. He needed a weapon. Crouching, he swiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and then grabbed it by its long neck.

When the girl screamed again, he knocked the bottom off against a wall. Pulse pounding in his temple, Luke pressed himself into the warm shadows and inched nearer the house.

When he was close enough, he yelled from the street. “Damn you, Little Red…you’re crazy to carry a gun into Mexico. Cops down here will lock you away. You’ll never get out.”

“This is good,” mocked his brother drunkenly. “Not before I kill me a lawyer and…and…a bastard.…You’re next—Indian.”

The door banged. Bloody fingers against his golden face, Baines staggered outside. As always he was dressed impeccably in a dark custom-made suit. His two goons, the giant in the jogging suit and the runt with the slicked-back hair, stumbled outside behind him, grabbing Baines before he fell.

“Run, you sons of bitches,” Little Red whooped, rushing after them. “Vengeance is mine.”

The three men took off running. Luke sidestepped into a black pocket between two houses. Something he’d read in one of Sanders’s reports came back to him. Little Red had starred in a dozen plays in high school.

“Corny. Prison damn sure didn’t dim your flair for cheap drama, did it, kid?” he shouted.

“Where the hell are you?” Elbowing his way into the shadows, Little Red waved his gun. “Step out where I can see you.”

“This isn’t a high school play—kid. And you ain’t Rambo. And I ain’t stupid.”

The gun swung wildly.

Luke shrank against the wall.

“Luke! You…you…coward! You bastard!”

Silence.

Then a roach scurried out of the dark past the rooster. Scrawny wings spread.

When Little Red fired, the confused rooster flapped straight at Little Red.

“Sonofabitch!” Swatting wildly at the bird, the kid dropped the gun.

Racing footsteps at the other end of the alley.

Mr. This-is-good and his goons hadn’t gotten far after all.

Little Red roared in rage, then gleefully scooped up his gun and lurched after them.

Silently, swiftly, Luke pursued them.

He got ten feet before she yelled. Then she moaned.

When nobody answered, a final hoarse cry was swallowed, strangled, broken off.

She was scared. The bastards had left her all alone in that shack.

Luke remembered the gunshots and stopped running. With acute frustration he watched Little Red’s bright red head vanish into darkness.

She could be hit. Dying.

Marcie.